Understanding Russia's soft power strategy

• How does Russia use the media to spread disinformation and propaganda in the West? 

• Which cultural sites in the West does Russia use to further its political agenda. 

• How can people in the West distinguish between authentic cultural diplomacy and State-sponsored Russian manipulation?

"A Nation Must Think Before it Acts: Measuring Soft Power"

In this article, Margaret Seymour explains the importance of developing tools for quantifying soft power: 

"Ultimately, the qualitative nature of foreign relations negates a clean quantitative approach to measuring performance or effectiveness. Still, as in most disciplines, some tangible quantitative data can help frame, illuminate, or otherwise bolster the qualitative assessments most often found in the world of international relations. These quantitative additions can be incredibly useful in garnering the monetary and moral support for soft power programs. Thinking in this way is critical to transforming the hyper-militarized foreign policy approach of the United States to transform it into something more nuanced, more diverse, and ultimately more effective."

https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/12/measuring-soft-power/#:~:text=Outside%20of%20the%20United%20States%2C%20other%20organizations,into%20trends%20over%20the%20past%20five%20years.